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Threshing Session on Meeting Structures & Needs
April 11 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
PYM presiding clerk Melissa Rycroft invites all Friends to join her for a threshing session on April 11. It is her intention to schedule time near each yearly meeting session for Friends to explore an issue of importance to our community. The topic of this threshing session will be exploring how our meeting structures meet Friends’ and seekers’ needs for their Quaker home. Melissa says this is about inclusion, and it’s about our future.
Explanation of Threshing Session: A threshing session is defined as “a meeting at which a variety of different, and sometimes controversial, opinions can be openly, and sometimes forcefully, expressed,.. [It] can be arranged in order to share factual information, air one’s views about a controversial subject, express our preferences, or ask questions… The aim is simply to move towards clarity and a greater understanding of an issue and to separate the ‘grain of truth from the chaff’.
Faith & Practice Description of Friends Meetings:
Friends meetings are spiritual communities of people who gather for worship, business and friendship. These meetings are the center of Quaker community life and also the foundation of the structure of the Religious Society of Friends. The Friends meeting holds meetings for worship weekly or more often and supports the spiritual, social, educational and material needs of its members. Through active engagement in their meeting, Friends find both a caring and safe environment and the challenge of spiritual growth. A Friends meeting offers members a place to test leadings and convictions based on a shared appreciation of individual and corporate spiritual direction.
Leaving generous space for continuing revelation, consider the following queries:
- Do our meetings create space for people to come together in worship and encourage the growth of spirit among us? How do we encourage one another to do that?
- How do our traditional meeting structures support and encourage the life of your local faith community? How do they restrict or inhibit the life of your local faith community?
- Looking to the future, what structure and organization do you envision for your local faith community that nurtures your spiritual life?
